Rodgers missed seven games with a broken collarbone before returning in time for the playoffs in 2013

Published at 12:12 PM CST on Dec 10, 2015

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We’d imagine few quarterbacks in the league can understand how Tony Romo felt for those two weeks between his first collarbone injury and his second, playing with the knowledge that any well-placed hit would break the bone all over again, quite as well as the Green Bay Packers’ Aaron Rodgers.

Not only has Rodgers faced the same situation, he faced it not that long ago. In 2013, he missed seven games with a fractured clavicle and returned for the regular season finale, and then the playoffs.

"There was a lot of apprehension when I was out there," Rodgers recalled on a conference call recently, via Todd Archer of ESPN Dallas. "I actually took a shot, I think it was the second quarter, on that side. Fortunately it didn't re-break it, but for sure it was on my mind.”

Of course, when Romo took a hit “on that side,” from the Panthers Thomas Davis on Thanksgiving Day, the collarbone did re-break, and he’ll be out for the season unless the Cowboys stumble into the playoffs by some miracle (or simply by virtue of the NFC East being really, really bad).

If that did happen and Romo returned, as you might guess, the collarbone would once again be at risk.

"Sometimes you're in some compromising positions as you're being tackled or hit and there are just things that are out of your control,” Rodgers said. "It's on your mind, but you just have to find a way to play through it and be fortunate enough to avoid that hit."